Part of the Global Plot to Expose Moonbats, conspiracy nuts, and anti-Semites, especially the Jewish anti-Semitic variety.
The leftwing Neo-Nazi web magazine Counterpunch has described Plaut thus: "One of the most pernicious writers is Steven Plaut, a man who could be thought of as Israel's Daniel Pipes."

LONDON -- The other day Ken Livingstone, the mayor of my hometown ofLondon, organized a conference on Islam and the West. It was a carefullyrigged affair in which handpicked speaker after handpicked speaker stoodup and announced that the democracies were to blame for the tidal wave ofmurder sweeping the world. To provide a spurious air of balance, theorganizers invited a few people who dissented from the line of the MuslimBrotherhood and its British allies. Agn.s Poirier, a French feminist, wasone of them, but she pulled out because although there were no specialfacilities for Christians, Hindus and Jews, Mr. Livingstone had providedseparate prayer rooms for Muslim men and Muslim women.

She wanted to know: Does Ken Livingstone's idea of multiculturalismacknowledge and condone segregation? It clearly does, but what made thisvignette of ethnic politics in a European city worth noting is thatcommentators for the BBC and nearly every newspaper here describe Mr.Livingstone as one of the most left-wing politicians in British publiclife. Hardly any of them notices the weirdness of an apparent socialistpandering to a reactionary strain of Islam, pushing its arguments andaccepting its dictates.

Mr. Livingstone's not alone. After suicide bombers massacred Londoners onJuly 7, 2005, leftish rather than conservative papers held British foreignpolicy responsible for the slaughters on the transport network. ("Blair'sBombs," ran the headline in my own leftish New Statesman.) In anyuniversity, you are more likely to hear campaigns for the rights of Muslimwomen derided by postmodernists than by crusty conservative dons. Our Stopthe War coalition is an alliance of the white far left and the Islamistfar right, and George Galloway, its leader, and the first allegedly "farleft" MP to be elected to the British parliament in 50 years, is anadmirer of Saddam Hussein and Hezbollah.

I could go on with specific examples, but the crucial point is thepervasive European attitude to the Iraq catastrophe. As al Qaeda, theBaathists and Shiite Islamists slaughter thousands, there is virtually nosense that their successes are our defeats. Iraqi socialists and tradeunionists I know are close to despair. They turn for support to Europe,the home of liberalism, feminism and socialism, and find that richdemocrats, liberals and feminists won't help them or even acknowledgetheir existence.

There were plenty of leftish people in the 20th century who excusedcommunism, but they could at least say that communism was a left-wingidea. Now overwhelmingly and everywhere you find people who scream theirheads off about the smallest sexist or racist remark, yet refuse toconfront ultra-reactionary movements that explicitly reject everyprinciple they profess to hold.

Why is the world upside down? In part, it is a measure of President Bush'sfailure that anti-Americanism has swept out of the intelligentsia andbecome mainstream in Britain. A country that was once the mostpro-American in Western Europe now derides Tony Blair for sticking withthe Atlantic alliance. But if Iraq has pummeled Mr. Blair's reputation, ithas also shone a very harsh light on the British and European left. No onenoticed it when the Berlin Wall came down, but the death of socialism gavepeople who called themselves "left wing" a paradoxical advantage. They nolonger had a practical program they needed to defend and could go alongwith ultra-right movements that would once have been taboo. In moments ofcrisis, otherwise sane liberals will turn to these movements and bereassured by the professed leftism of the protest organizers that they arenot making a nonsense of their beliefs.

If, that is, they have strong beliefs to abandon. In Europe and NorthAmerica extreme versions of multiculturalism and identity politics haveleft a poisonous legacy. Far too many liberal-minded people think that issomehow culturally imperialist to criticize reactionary movements andideas -- as long as they aren't European or American reactionarymovements. This delusion is everywhere. Until very recently our Labourgovernment was allowing its dealings with Britain's Muslim minority to becontrolled by an unelected group, the Muslim Council of Britain, whichstood for everything social democrats were against. In their desperateattempts to ingratiate themselves, ministers gave its leader a knighthood-- even though he had said that "death was too good" for Salman Rushdie,who happens to be a British citizen as well as a great novelist.

Beyond the contortions and betrayals of liberal and leftish thinking liesa simple emotion that I don't believe Americans take account of: aninsidious fear that has produced the ideal conditions for appeasement.Radical Islam does worry Europeans but we are trying to prevent anexplosion by going along with Islamist victimhood. We blame ourselves forthe Islamist rage, in the hope that our admission of guilt will pacify ourenemies. We are scared, but not scared enough to take a stand.

I hope conservative American readers come to Britain. But if you do,expect to find an upside-down world. People who call themselves liberalsor leftists will argue with you, and when they have finished you mayexperience the strange realization that they have become far morereactionary than you have ever been.

Mr. Cohen, a columnist for the Observer and the New Statesman, is theauthor of "What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way" (Fourth Estate,2007).